The visit, which city officials denied even though it was witnessed by a Post Star reporter, would appear to be the latest attempt by the city to lure a new AHL team with the impending departure of the Adirondack Phantoms.

The Heat is the AHL affiliate of the Calgary Flames. The team is located in suburban Vancouver.

“Sorry, the Abbotsford Heat are not in a position to confirm or deny anything done by the Calgary Flames,” Abbotsford Heat spokesman Ravi Sidhu told the Times Union Monday.

There have been other rumors that Glens Falls was trying to attract the Portland, Maine team and another Canadian team, to no avail.

Last year, there were rumors that the Heat were considering moving the team to Utica, but in the end, the Vancouver Canucks AHL team was moved to Utica after the NHL Canucks purchased another minor league team in Illinois.

Ironically, the Heat were once the Utica Devils, back when the franchise was owned by the New Jersey Devils. The Calgary Flames purchase the team in 1993, moving it to Saint John, New Brunswick. The team eventually relocated to Abbotsford in 2009, and its contract runs out this year.

In addition to be a major source of community pride AHL hockey is a major source of revenue for the civic center, which may be closed down if a new team cannot be secured.

3 Responses

I understand that the locality has been subsidizing the team and has been losing a great deal of money. It baffles me how any team in the Western Division makes money with the vastly increased travel costs associated with being on the road so much. Texas was on the road for almost the entire month of February according to some of the players on the team. Compare that to Albany or Glens Falls, or even less with Springfield and Hartford. From what I understand, the latter two teams may stay overnight perhaps 5 nights in an entire season. It would make sense for the Flames to move to Glens Falls, if even for the increased practice time it gives them from not traveling so much.

Yes, the Abbotsford franchise loses money, that’s the point. The city has been paying fees to the team each of the first 5 yrs of the 10 yr arena contract ($5million to date) in lieu of gate receipts and concession sales –that have been poor. Essentially , the team subsidizes every visiting team ‘s travel expenses (closest opponent is 2,000 miles away)

As the Post story points out, the City of Abbotsford has the right to revisit the financial arrangement after 5 yrs, which is now -2014. If the City bails on the arrangement, the team will almost certainly land in a new home. If it makes sense for Nucks to land in Utica, then G Falls for A’ford isn’t crazy at all. GF is a great hockey town. They deserve a team that will come and commit to the city.

It makes the most sense to have the clubs clustered together. This pie in the sky idea of spreading the league all over the map is foolish on so many levels. Here’s hoping this happens for the GF community and the AHL fans in the entire area. While we may never experience “the glory years” of the Rats and Wings when both were strong, the potential does exist for something better than what we currently have. A lame duck, low performing team vs an equally poor club (up until this year) doesn’t create a rivalry. I would like to see what happens if GF gets another club that is playoff caliber when Albany is competitive. 21 years of AHL hockey in Albany and we don’t really have an established rivalry that the fans can look forward to. That is unfortunate.